Presidential Outline Directions

Presidential Wiki Assignments For AP US History

1. Thematic Context - Countless events occur over the span of a presidency that has nothing to do with the administration in office. Choose one of the following themes that you will follow throughout each of your presidential analyses:
   1. American Diversity
      American Identity
      Culture
      Demographic Changes
      Environment
      Globalization
      Citizenship
      Religion
      Slavery and Its Legacies in North America
   2. Highlight 2 major developments within this theme and explain how their pressures impacted the presidency. Build a context for how this may have shaped the thought process of Americans as well. Be sure to use sufficient resources in building your argument. (6 points)
   3. Here is a file that will help generate some ideas of major events that occurred during each presidency:
      1. 

         Presidential Outline of Major Events.doc
         

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2. President’s full name (Include birth and death dates) (1 point)
3. Political party of the president (1 point)
4. Dates of the term or terms of office (1 point)
5. Vice President by term (1 point)
6. Overall rating of this president and his administration, based on criteria that you will either establish or be given. This is the most important part of the presidential outline. While your subjective evaluation is required for this part of the paper, it must be based on factual information. This part of the outline should be in essay form. The evaluation should be based on events that happened during the presidential administration, not on things the president accomplished before he took office. (No personal pronouns – I think, I believe etc. - are ever to be used in this part of the paper.) Below is the format to be followed for writing your evaluation of each president. (21 points)
7. Bibliography. Please list all sources that you used for this outline in MLA format. (4 points)

1. Thesis paragraph. In two to three sentences explain how you would rate this president and his administration and grade the president from A to F with A being the highest. Pluses and minuses may be used. Also give very brief general reasons for this rating/ranking.
2. Identify the goals of this president and how well they were accomplished. The easiest place to find the goals of each president are the transcripts of their inauguration addresses.
3. Discuss the relationship of this president with Congress and give examples. To do a thorough job on this paragraph you will need to determine the majority party in both houses of congress and examine legislation passed and legislation vetoed. (You will have to do outside research to find this very important information.)
4. Explain which action of the president’s administration had the most positive outcome and give reasons to support your assertion. Explain which action of the president’s administration had the most negative outcome and give reasons to support your assertion. (Do not choose items that were done by people outside the government such as Eli Whitney and his invention of the cotton gin.) (x2)
5. Describe how one of the decisions made by the president or his administration influenced future presidential administrations or the lives of people in future generations. If a presidential administration had absolutely no impact on future administrations or generations explain why.
6. The Conclusion: Explain whether the country was better off at the end of his term(s) of office than at the beginning. Relate your answer back to the ranking you gave the president in your thesis paragraph. Hopefully, if the country was better off, the president received a higher rating, and if it was worse off, the president received a lower rating.

• Do not, under any circumstances, copy any websites containing posted presidential outlines.
• Use of sites with posted presidential outlines or copying students work from current or past AP classes will constitute plagiarism, punishable by removal from or recommendation not to be accepted into the National Honor Society, as well as a letter included in your guidance file that will inform colleges of your academic dishonesty, and referral to your administrator.
• An outline, that has information on it that was on previous year’s outlines but no longer currently on this year’s outline will receive a grade of 0 and be considered plagiarism.
• Work on outlines is to be done independently and without outside consultation. Unfortunately there will be no “group constructed” outlines.